Im getting peafowl. problem: ive never had them and know nothing about them. please help.

[DylansMom]

Sounded like a bit of a lecture, of course I am going to do all of my research first. thanks for the help

I am sorry if it sounded that way. Please understand we all hear a lot of stories from unprepared Pea owners and they generally do not end well. I was not all that well informed myself when I got my first pair 20 years ago, but my area was a lot more rural than your's seems to be. I only had 4 neighbors on my road, and more horse traffic than car traffic(wish that were still the case), but I still had to retrieve my Peas from my neighbors screened back patio on numerous occasions, and they had pooped all over the indoor/outdoor carpet. I penned them up before it caused hard feelings, and they've been penned ever since.

Inner pens and outdoor runs.

 

[nathanmouse]

Sorry, I have done a poor job creating this thread. It came out sounding like I'm getting peas regardless. I made this thread because I want to educate myself more before I get serious about peas.

 

[nathanmouse]

Sorry, I really have done a poor job writing this thread, the reason I created this post was to educate myself before getting serious about peas. Thanks for your info

 

[nathanmouse]

again, i have done a poor job creating his post. im not sure if i want peacocks, that is why i made the thread, to establish if i want them. and when i heard of worming, I was confusing earth parasites with earthworms. brain fart.

 

[nathanmouse]

I am aware of the commitment. ive done a bad job with this thread. i meant thtis thread to help me decide whetther or not i want one.

 

[nathanmouse]

and thank you for helping. its nice that your helping me instead of lecturing me.

 

[Trefoil]

Nathan don't worry about it. We were all young once ( just for some of us it was a loooong time ago) and we all started somewhere. Once you get past the panic replies, this forum is a good place to gather information. Between the lot of us I daresay we've made just about every mistake possible and its a whole lot easier learning from others mistakes than having to make them ourselves.

 

[nathanmouse]

Thanks. I have found a lot of valuable information here!

 

[MinxFox]

No problem dude don't let us turn you off on owning peas, it is like others have said we have seen some bad stuff on here and that probably taints our view. I will never forget the story of the people deciding to keep a pair of endangered peafowl because they were "pretty" but they knew nothing about them only to have some dogs break into the pen and kill the birds.

Even once you get your first peafowl you will make mistakes like all of us have. We just all get annoyed when we see someone buy them on a whim and then after they get the birds they rush to learn all about them. Your post was a bit unclear I guess, and we all probably get a little annoyed answering the same questions over and over, but of course it is definitely not your fault.

Okay with that said, peafowl are the only bird I have owned so I would say they have been a great starter bird for me. They don't eat as much as chickens, aside from feeding them game bird feed as a main food and cat food for protein you can feed them a large assortment of treats as well as leftover foods. Since getting peas our old leftovers have not gone to waste. Old apples can be shredded and given to them, etc. They can be friendly if you hatch them and hand raise them, but it all depends. Generally peafowl are very shy and a bit spooky. It takes time to earn their trust which you can do by feeding them treats from your hand to get them close to you and used to you. The peacock will make loud calls in the spring and summer time, and the more males the more noise so you might want to let your neighbors know about the noise. Many people seem to think they sound like a lady screaming for help. I don't think peacocks sound like that, to me it sounds like an exotic jungle noise, but you don't want your neighbors freaking out haha! Sometimes they make a honking noise, which is basically a danger call and usually they also puff up when they make this noise. Usually if you look at where they are looking after they make this call, you will see a hawk. You will never get tired of their beauty and watching the peacocks display is definitely a treat. I am not sure of the total length the peacock gets, but I think it is 6ft. so generally if you can provide them perches that allows the peacock's 6ft. train to not touch the ground that is great. My mistake was thinking that a large bird such as the peafowl would not have many predators. I was wrong. Owls can kill them, raccoons have killed 3 of my peafowl, dogs, etc. The worst part of owning peafowl is having a predator kill some of your birds, having a sick bird and hoping that your treatment works, and making more pens because you get addicted to owning them and want more, and thus some people are building new pens every year! I am not good at pen construction.

I can't talk much about cold sensitivity because I am in Florida, but India Blue varieties are better for the cold than Spalding varieties and Green peafowl. There are tons of varieties of peafowl, over 225, so you have many options when considering what variety you want. Most people start with India Blues because they are the common variety and usually the least expensive.

The peafowl stickies topic is great along with these websites:
1. http://www.unitedpeafowlassociation.org/
2. http://peafowlimagedatabase.weebly.com/
3. http://www.texaspeafowl.com/index.html
4.http://www.hopkinslivestock.com/peafowl.htm
5.http://connerhills.com/
6.http://www.bamboopeacock.com/home.html (my site)

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Edited to say that the picture of the bird 'burned' by the heated roost looks more like the bird got frost bite to me, but I could be wrong. I am just thinking back to a topic I once saw with photos of birds that had frost bite toes. Very sad.

 

[nathanmouse]

A thanks for the help! We're not really worried about noise. They don't bug us, neighbours had some years ago. And as for our neighbours we have only two close enough for concern. But one is a meth lab, so they can't criticize us for being bad neighbors, as they very nearly set both our house and the forest on fire last year. ! The other is a close friend, who owns several donkeys that are heard For 3 kilometers. I digress, thanks for the help!